Jane Eyre

Summary: 1948 BBC live studio production of Helen Jerome’s dramatisation of Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre.
Theatre play: Jane Eyre by Helen Jerome [more information]
Play synopsis: A theatrical adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel of the same name. ‘Young Jane Eyre comes to Thornfield, the estate of the brooding Rochester, to be a governess to Adele, his child-ward. Rochester is an unhappy man with lunatic wife whom he must keep locked up. As Jane’s presence begins to lighten his mood, they come to an understanding which it is assumed will lead to marriage. However, Jane discovers Rochester’s secret of the the locked room and leaves Thornfield, returning to discover that the lunatic has burned down the estate killing herself in the fire, leaving Rochester free to marry Jane’ (source: http://www.samuelfrench.com/p/3026/jane-eyre).
Production history: A production of Jerome’s Jane Eyre at the Aldwych Theatre, London in 1936 seems to be the first staging; the play was thereafter regularly revived in the UK and the USA (see H. Philip Bolton’s Women Writers Dramatized, London: Mansell, p. 88 ff.).
Date of transmission: Sunday 26 September 1948
Time: 8.30-10.15pm
Channel: BBC Television
Production company: BBC

Producer

Harold Clayton

Playwright

Helen Jerome

Adapted for Television by

Harold Clayton

Original Book by

Charlotte Brontë

Sets / Settings

James Bould

Cast

Origination: Live from studio
Vision original: Monochrome
Later transmissions: Presented again at 8.45pm on Friday 1 October 1948.
Notes: Three of the television cast played their roles in the original 1936 stage production at the Aldwych Theatre: Reginald Tate, Susan Richmond and Marie Ault (The Scanner, ‘Acting at 78’, Radio Times, 24 September 1948, p. 28).
Extant status: No archival copy is known to exist.
Play tags: adaptation of novel

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